SF0 / teucer / Seeing Beyond Sight Photo Challenge

30 + 5 points

Seeing Beyond Sight Photo Challenge by teucer

November 16th, 2007 5:22 PM

INSTRUCTIONS: Seeing Beyond Sight has partnered with SFZero to challenge you to see the world differently - with more than your eyes.

Welcome new users: SFZero is an ongoing game in which you can choose to participate (or not) after you do the Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge.

Click here for new user registration.

1. Blindfold yourself.
(wear shades or tape your eyes shut)

2. Go out in public and make your way in the world.
(go 1 block, 1 hour or 1 roll of film; go with a friend or alone; make up your own process)

3. Photograph things you notice. And, just notice.
(What do you notice differently about objects, people, actions, interactions?)

4. Embrace the whole experience as much as the picture taking.
(Engage. Have a conversation with people you encounter. Take it all in.)

5. Share your story.
(For each photograph write a caption about your experience - a few lines or several paragraphs if you want.)

6. Challenge some friends to do it.
(email them the link: sf0.org/seeingbeyondsight)

Please don't post all the pictures from your shoot, but chose 1 to 3 that are the best images or are most telling of your experience. Caption the photos describing something about your experience - that is as important as the image itself. Longer stories are welcomed and may be added to www.seeingbeyondsight.org.

If you depend on your eyes to get around, then it is hard not to use them. Although you can tell us about how difficult it is to be blind, focus more on what you noticed about the world as you embarked on this journey.

This experience isn’t about blindness – it is about seeing, noticing and paying attention with more than your eyes.

This challenge was inspired by SEEING BEYOND SIGHT: PHOTOGRAPHY BY BLIND TEENAGERS, a new book published by Chronicle Books.

I went to visit my good friend Agent Fourteen. The buildings we live in connect, so I didn't need to put on a coat to get there - which is why I put it on my head instead. Then I photographed my head.

(Story continued in the captions.)

- smaller

My head

Being blindfolded I couldn't operate a camera effectively, so I'm upside-down. Then, I tried to make my way out of my room.

Doorway

I tried to find the door. It took me a while, but I did it. Then I crashed into a chair.

Chair?

I think that's a chair, at least. Mostly it's my leg crashing into it. Afterwards I found my way to the door out of the common room.

Doorknob!

I am so glad I noticed this. Then I went down a hallway to another door.

Through a door

Then I came across something and noticed it. This next picture sucks, because I also noticed that I couldn't aim a camera for shit.

I think it's a door.

Yeah. Next there's the other side of it, where I figure out from crashing into stairs that I have taken a wrong turn.

Stairs

I figured out where I was just in time to not go through the (alarmed) door at the top of those. So I went a different way, but still not the right one.

Down a hallway

That's the hall I went down.

Um, yeah.

This is me going down a hallway with a camera at a funny angle. I think I'm about to hit a wall here. Eventually I crashed into something else.

What's this?

I noticed it when I crashed into it. But I did not know what it was.

Fountain!

How I figured out what I saw. Then I went down a hallway and thought I had found certain stairs.

Bump

This is what I had really found. I'm by the stairs, finding things with my head.

Stairs?

Stairs! I found them!

I'm going up!

This is how I found each individual stair - by noticing them all with my feet.

I keep noticing these stairs.

They're... stairlike. Then I go up them. At the top, I went to a door that was locked. I must confess that I took off my blindfold for just long enough to find the keyhole before going through.

Bulletin board.